Rwanda and Juliet was one of the last films was one of the last films shown in the fall 2015 schedule of the Arthouse Film Festival. It’s a documentary, which follows an American college professor, Andrew Garrod, who’s decided to being Shakespeare to Rwanda. In 1994, there was a genocide, where the Hutu families caused a million deaths of the Tutsi citizens.

The trailer for the movie can be found here.

Twenty years have passed since that tragedy, and Garrod hopes to use Romeo and Juliet as a way to aid in the healing of old wounds. Given the nature of the story, where two people fall in love from warring families of Montagues and Capulets, he felt it was an appropriate choice. His idea was to cast only Hutus for one family and Tutsis for the other. Once he arrives and schedules the auditions, that all gets thrown out the window. The auditioners are very undisciplined, and casting is somewhat difficult. He cannot align his choices along those lines. It ends up being a mix.

Once cast, there’s a lot of work to do. Most of the cast has either little or no stage experience, and there’s a lot to accomplish. Garrod only has funding for about 6 weeks of producing the play, so it’s make or break. Many of the cast are wary of the Professor, and believe his plan to be a bit ridiculous, claiming that reconciliation has occurred, so a play to reunite the people is no longer necessary. They get frustrated, but pull together when it’s needed.

The documentarians end up following several of the cast, and find out more than they ever thought they would. I’ll just leave it at that.

Overall, I would side with the Rwandans in this attempt by an outsider to think that Professor Garrod’s efforts would have as big an impact as he expected. I won’t go further down that thinking, so that you may discover it for yourselves. This is an acceptable documentary and worth the time to watch.